Glad to see one of my favorite places, Ric's Country Kitchen, has made the grade!!!

Exotic cuisine finds a home in Doha

The sushi conveyor at Oishi Sushi in Royal Plaza

When choosing a restaurant for a special dining experience, many people in Doha immediately consider the many dining offerings in the variety of hotels.
However, if you are willing to take the time and visit some less well-known establishments, one can find truly unique and authentic dining experiences.
With a wide range of unique dishes, Caribbean Cuisine and Pastries, near Toyota Towers, offers an authentic array of exotic food otherwise unavailable in Qatar.
Cooked with passion and expertise that is apparent in the dishes, the menu features delicacies such as curried goat, ackee saltfish, gungo peas soup and the world famous Caribbean dish of jerk chicken.
With all the chefs hailing from the Caribbean, the food is as authentic as it is tasty, and the restaurant offers diners the chance to sample a cuisine they may never have experienced before.
Although sushi is a hugely popular cuisine, readily available in a large number of hotel restaurants in Qatar, Oishi Sushi in Royal Plaza offers diners a traditional experience of Japanese food. The restaurant has a sushi conveyor belt with an all you can eat offer on sushi and maki on Sunday and Monday evenings, and the live Tepenyaki cooking provides visual stimulus to diners, who can also sit in private Tatami rooms – adapted from those which can be found in Japan.
Many residents have also been enjoying the dining experience offered at Balhambar restaurant on the Corniche. Although the current weather conditions make outdoor dining difficult, when temperatures become more comfortable, the restaurant offers a unique opportunity to sit less than a foot from the water’s edge, sample a wide selection of Arabic and other cuisine, and enjoy a spectacular view of both ends of the corniche.
Souq Waqif also offers a plethora of restaurants providing a vast selection of international cuisine. Visitors can choose from traditional Gulf Arabic food, or they can have a taste of Moroccan or Iranian cuisine.
But amongst the Arabic themed restaurants are other establishments offering food from Italy as well as other European countries, and the recently opened Soy presents customers with Asian Fusion food.
Diners looking for a more authentic British experience may find themselves eating fish and chips whilst reading the Sunday Times at JG’s Sandwich Cellar, whilst Americans looking for something different to the many US-themed chain diners can drop in at Ric’s Country Kitchen for a giant stack of pancakes with blueberries or maple syrup.
Owned by a Qatari of Iranian origin, Shater Abbas restaurant uses ingredients from Iran to help flavour its selection of 17 different barbeque recipes.

With live music at various times throughout the year, the establishment offers diners a chance to enjoy traditional Persian cuisine in a relaxed atmosphere.The ambience and atmosphere of restaurants seems to be a major aspect of what diners seek. Many places can offer an adequate level of food and service, but most people want something a little bit different.

“When I go out I want to feel that I am enjoying the whole experience,” said one Western expatriate. “It is not only about having good food – although that is important – I want to remember the entire dinner experience as enjoyable.”

And with such a vast selection of restaurants to choose from, there is sure to be something to meet even the fussiest diners’ tastes. With restaurants offering Indonesian, Jamaican, Malaysian, British, Chinese, Indian, Korean, Tunisian and Iranian fare among many others, the culinary landscape of Qatar continues to develop, every so often throwing up a special and unique treat for the country’s cookery connoisseurs.

Irked by having to pay what they call “hidden charges”, some customers have expressed their displeasure at the increasing practice in restaurants of adding “service charges” to their final tab.
Patrons say they do not mind paying the extra so long as any additional charge is written visibly on the menus and the money actually goes to who it is originally charged for - the staff.

“The fact that my bill had a 10% service charge came as a surprise. The font size used on the menu to announce the charge was smaller than a bank’s fine print,” a customer of a fine dining restaurant said.
Debate on the subject is raging across the region. Just last week, the UAE outlawed the practice and warned restaurants and cafés to do away with the practice by February 1 or face fines ranging between Dh5,000 to Dh100,000. Exempted from the rule are restaurants located in hotels.
Service charge, often added to the final bill at dine-in and table-service restaurants (not applies on take-outs, home delivery), usually ranges from 5% to 20% depending upon the quality of the outlet. The practice is allowed at restaurants inside hotels but has caught up outside too.
Restaurants, however, yesterday defended the service charge and maintained the money went towards staff waiting tables and inside the kitchen.
“Various establishments use it for different purposes. We use it as a motivational factor for our staff,” said a senior official at a food and beverage company which manages some of the leading franchised restaurants in Qatar.
But customers also accused restaurants of pocketing the extra money rather than giving 100% to employees.
“If all of the service charge is not passed down to staff then restaurant use the money to cover breakages (glass, cutlery etc) by employees rather than managements increasing the cost of products (on the menu),” a general manager of an American franchised chain of restaurant said.

The practice is not restricted to branded restaurants only as some local fine dining restaurants in Qatar also take service charges. Most officials Gulf Times spoke to were not sure whether a prior Baladiya or Ministry of Business & Trade permission was taken before the charge was introduced.
Industry officials also dismissed suggestions that instead of a separate service charge they should increase the price of products as “impossible”.
“This can’t be done. Increase in prices will make the customer move to a competitor,” a restaurant official said. “We do however waive the service charge if a customer insists or if they do not feel like they received the level of service they expected,” he added.